Here is Kristina, the Slovakian representative at Eurovision, with “Horehronie”:
So New Age! There’s nothing wrong with this song, per se, but it never really goes anywhere. It’s all mood and no substance. Compare it to “Water“, Bulgaria’s 2007 entry and a song that occupies the same space as “Horehronie.” There’s progression there. You feel it building as it goes along, whereas “Horehronie” just lies there. I didn’t hate it, but I won’t remember it either.
After last year’s quite mad “Hora Din Moldova“, the people of Moldova decided to stick with the dance music. Rather than going with a pseudo-traditional number, though, they went with “Run Away” by Sun Stroke Project and Olia Tira:
Honestly, at first, “Run Away” struck me as one of those generic Euro-pop dance numbers that always seem to fill up some space during the Eurovision Song Contest. Then that saxophone riff kicks in, and suddenly, I am totally okay with this song. Of course, the sheer goofiness of the saxophone player probably helps too.
And how about those turntables he and the violin player got to spin around on? They so need to make sure those make it to Oslo.
Aisha is representing Latvia at Eurovision with “What For?” Only Mr. God knows why:
I never understand how songs in which the singer hits a lot of bum notes… and trust me, in that second verse, Aisha misses more notes than she lands… make it through to the big show. You could figure if people grow to know a song during semi-final rounds, then they are more likely to be forgiving of an off-performance on national final night. But Latvia only had a national final. I’m almost afraid to listen to the other entries in case this really was the best of the bunch.
And man, is this number maudlin. Every melody in this song is just whiny. The chorus is catchy, but not in a pleasant way. And not just because Aisha is off key. “What For?” is just an annoying drone of a song.
Björk is representing Iceland at Eurovision this year! Okay, it’s Hera Björk with “Je Ne Sais Quoi,” but I can’t resist using a lame obvious unfunny gag to start things off. Let’s just cut to the song:
It’s a Europop dance anthem, so it’s hard for me to gauge it. On the one hand, Iceland did well with “This Is My Life” a couple of years ago (and “Je Ne Sais Quoi” is certainly very reminiscent of that). On the other hand, Finland did horribly with “Lose Control” last year. Let’s blame Finland’s demise last year on the rapping and then say that Iceland could do decently with “Je Ne Sais Quoi.” Not that I expect it to win, or even place second. But they won’t embarrass themselves either.
The trouble with writing up reviews of songs after listening to them only a couple of times is you sometimes don’t fully appreciate them. I kinda slagged off Brinck’s “Believe Again” after I first heard it, but it eventually became my favorite entry from the 2009 competition.
I think Denmark is on a bit of a roll, actually. Jen and I are split on Simon Mathew’s “All Night Long” from 2008. I thought it was a good track, if a bit annoyingly chipper. Jen found it more irritating. And we both enjoyed DQ’s “Drama Queen” from 2007, though sadly, she didn’t exactly bring a vibrant performance during the semi-finals. So since the utter horror of “Twist of Love” in 2006, Denmark has a solid Eurovision track record.
Chanée and N’evergreen’s “In a Moment Like This” continues the run of success. The opening guitar riff filled me with dread, because it sounds a bit like John Waite’s “Missing You”. Then the vocals kick in to make everything a-okay:
How terrific is that chorus? It’s like Danish scientists have spent years perfecting a chorus that can get caught in your brain without making you want to drive it out with an icepick. I hope they use as much of the staging as they can, because I love Chanée and N’evergreen starting out on opposite sides of the scrim. Of course, the wind machine was set a little too high at the end, but you can adjust that.
We both have a good feeling about this one. The second we heard it during the Danish final, we knew it was the winner. And in a year with a lot of slow, anthemic ballads, an up-tempo pop ballad could just be what the Eurovision audience craves.
Jeez Louise, we watched the Norway, Denmark and Iceland finals and never wrote them up! Damn you, Olympics!!! Let the rectification begin with our look at the reigning champions, who are sending Kris Allen-lookalike Didrik Solli-Tangen and his song “My Heart Is Yours”:
It’s as if Norway collectively thought, “That song Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote last year was quite good. Let’s ape that.” That said, this is a stand-out anthem among all the ballads that are making it to Eurovision this year. Jen said that it shows you, rather then tells you, like all those “I love you I love you I love you” songs. (That’s her term, based on Ukraine’s “I Love You,” which, I neglected to mention in the review, repeated the phrase “I love you” 12 times in English and nine times in Ukrainian. Well, we assume that’s what he’s saying since we don’t speak Ukrainian.)
The Norway final was particularly strong. I mentioned “Jealous ‘Cause I Love You” earlier, but the other stand-out for me was Keep of Kalessin’s “Dragontower,” because I’m still a teenaged metal head.
We missed the first 10 minutes of Russia’s national final due to a rip in the time-space continuum (specifically, my inability to figure out the time zone difference between Central European Time and Eastern Standard Time). We only missed yet another performance of “Fairytale” by Alexander Rybak, though, and since we’re coming around to Graham Norton’s feelings about Rybak, this was fine by us. He later performed another song after Dima Bilan performed yet another performance of “Believe.”
Missing from all this, incidentally, is last year’s Russian entry, Anastasiya Prykhodko’s “Mamo.” This is not a bad thing.
I don’t remember much of how Russia tallied up the votes for their entries last year, but this year’s tally was the same as the 2008 national final, in which at the end, the hosts go through and announce the scores given to each performer by the public and by the jury. In the end, the prize of representing Russia at Eurovision went to the delightfully odd “Lost and forgotten” by Peter Nalitch.
This is kind of awful and kind of awesome all at the same time. It’s sort of like a parody of Balkan Eurovision entries, only it doesn’t know it. Unless it does. I don’t know. It’s not got a chance in hell of winning, but the more I hear it, the more it grows on me. Like fungus, granted, but still…
Yet this was not the only bizarre Russia entry. There was Buranovskiye Babushki, which is, as you can probably guess from the name, a group of singing and dancing grandmothers. I am embarrassed to admit how much I liked this song:
But the camp highlight of the evening had to be Oleg Bezinskih’s performance. If you’re going to go over the top, be sure you clear top by a good few feet. Or a good mile, for that matter:
This is everything Krassimir Avramov tried to do last year and failed at, really.
The Portugal national final was a bit of a slog. That’s really the best way to describe it. Let’s start with the voting process. There were juries set up in 20 Portuguese locales, and they assigned points like in the Song Contest itself. So the host went through and got the points from a representative of each jury. But she also made small talk with the reps as well. Thus, the tallying went for over an hour.
After the points were tallied up, the top vote getter received 12 points total, the second-place vote getter got 10 points total, and so on down the line. Then this score was added to the points given to the performers by the public voting to determine who won. So if you got, say, two points from the jury and seven points from the public, you’d end up with nine points.
Now, some countries use juries to offset the public voting so that, say, Dustin the Turkey doesn’t show up at the big show. However, you question the taste of the juries when they pick as their winner Filipa Azevedo’s “Há dias assim”:
Ignore the fact that this is a bland ballad reminiscent of something Mariah Carey would have passed on 20 years ago. The issue here is that Azevedo is singing this so poorly. God, her runs sound like she’s gargling. It’s just a horrible experience listening to this (which I am doing here just for you, gentle readers). Sure she’ll probably sing it better at the Semi-Finals. But what if she doesn’t? Then you’re stuck with this sore thumb of song that is going to keep your winless streak alive.
There seemed to be a bit of controversy, at least amongst ESCToday readers, about the voting, since the public had given Catarina Pereira’s “Canta por mim” 12 points, and Azevedo’s song just seven points. But here’s the thing about that. “Canta por mim” sounds a lot like last year’s Spain entry “La noche es para mi,” which finished tied for second-to-last. So really, there’s no way for Portugal to win this year.
We have intense cases of Olympic Fever, so during the fortnight that Winter Olympics were on, we completely ignored Eurovision to discuss the finer strategies involved in curling. This past weekend, however, we got caught up on what we had missed in a major way. On Saturday, we watched the Ukraine song selection show, followed by the Sweden repechage, followed by the Portugal national final. Then we watched the Russia national final on Sunday. Then we went through and listed to all the other songs that have been picked since then. (Ukraine made it easy for us by having the entries from Armenia and Bulgaria on, as well as the performer for Azerbaijan.)
Then we watched the Oscars, which sucked all joy and life out of us, so we’re regaining our souls now by writing up a whole ton of song reviews.
Let’s start off with Ukraine. Vasyl Lazarovich was hand-picked for Eurovision by Ukraine organizers. He performed five songs on Saturday, and both a jury and the Ukrainian public voted on which song to send. They all chose “I Love You”:
It was pretty obvious this was going to be the song that won, because it’s the only one that Vasyl performed with any confidence. Even though it is dreck… man, is it dreck. (“I love you, I love you, I love you”? Someone needs to send a DVD of Singing In the Rain to Kyiv, quick.) Regardless, he sang it well, and connected with the audience in a way he hadn’t during the other four songs on the night.
The number we were rooting for was of course the one that Vasyl had absolutely no confidence in whatsoever. Watch him try to play rock star in “Don’t Wanna Lose You”:
He could not be more uncomfortable if he had live squirrels romping in his jeans.
The Swedish Second Chance round was interesting, although in the end, the voters picked the songs by the pretty blonde women. Neither number really has a chance in next week’s final, because if they did, they wouldn’t have needed to go to the Second Chance round, would they?
During Chanée & N’evergreen’s “In a Moment Like This”:
Jen: “Wind machine. Very good.”
Chris: “A little too strong.”
Jen: “No. No. Never too strong.”